


the girl who drinks tea with the devil

by Missy



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Coven
Genre: Afterlife, Backstory, Demons, Gen, Going to Hell, Hell, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-30
Updated: 2014-04-30
Packaged: 2018-01-21 09:04:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1545218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nan shares her story with Papa Legba.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the girl who drinks tea with the devil

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ariestess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariestess/gifts).



> Written for ariestess for RWFE in 2014. Hope it was enjoyed!

“Does it have to be so smoky down here?” Papa Legba raised an eyebrow and glanced down at the impertinent child beside him. Nan just faked a cough and brushed away the smoke billowing about her nose. “What? I have allergies!”

“Dead girls don’t cough,” Papa Legba observed. They wandered the underworld until they reached a place of relative silence and cleanliness; a room of heavy, thick stone walls and gloomy black stalactites. Nan grinned at the atmosphere; this was her kind of place. Papa Legba noted her obvious happiness and was surprised by it, but he would come to learn just how important the unseen had been to Nan all of her life…someday. As for now she absorbed his time by behaving with alarming calm. He gestured toward a bare rock and urged her to settle herself there.

But he sat down first as she sat, unmoving, silently contemplating the hellscape surrounding her. “Tell me your story, child.”

Nan then sat, but shrugged at him. “Why are you so interested?” she asked. “You’ve probably seen lots of girls like me – though they probably aren’t as beautiful...”

“Many witches, true, but few of your daring and confidence. They come to me crawling desperate on their knees. But you look me right in the eye. There is no fear in you.” He rubbed his chin. “And I admit I find that…interesting.”

Nan just grinned and took his hand in hers. “I’ll tell you as long as I can take these stupid shoes off. I died in FLATS, and they suck.”

He shrugged. Her shoes came off, and then with a wave of her hand the scene before him briefly wavered, then dissolved. Suddenly, he sat in a rocking chair sitting central to a beautiful nursery bedecked from ceiling to floor in pink ruffles, ribbons and stuffed bears.

She gave him a confident smile and beckoned him toward the cradle, toward the story hidden within it.

*** 

When Nan’s parents learned of her…condition…there was a great amount of tears to be had in the privacy of their boudoir. Would they abort? Would they give her away? Would the gin run out before their nerves?

She made the choice. The carefully prepared nursery, the beautiful outfits, the tiny shoes – all would be given away, like the baby in her womb. If they couldn’t find somebody willing to care for someone as … _special_ ….as Nan, then they’d say that there was a miscarriage and abandon her at the nearest firehouse. Simple as that.

But when the pains came, her cowardice drew them to the hospital. When they lingered, he stayed close to them, feeling the sudden flash of light and power enter the world along with the girlchild. 

When she opened her eyes they were overwhelmed. The confidence hidden in that little face seemed to decide for them; they would love her, whether or not they had meant to. They didn’t know why, precisely, but they kept the girl. And treated her from then on like a princess.

*** 

The scene dissolved quickly, and he was disturbed enough by the suddenness that he was forced to make an accusation. “You glamoured them,” Papa Legba said.

“Don’t be a dick,” Nan said. “They thought I was awesome from the day they saw me. They just needed a little bit of convincing.”

“I saw you at that school, and you hadn’t mastered mind control until the very last week of your life. But you claim now you were talented from the womb?” Papa Legba wondered. “You’re a charming liar, Nan.”

She shrugged. “It’s not bragging if you do it and you back it up.”

“It was that cockiness of yours that earned you a dunk in that tub,” he said. With a flick of his fingers, he conjured a cup of red rooibos tea and offered it to Nan. She prudently waited for him to puff his own cup into existence before taking a sip.

“Now. Tell me about your childhood.”

**** 

Nan was slow, or so her teachers said. She’d always be ten years old they later tell her parents, eleven in reasoning skills, and they don’t expect her to pass the fourth grade. Her outraged parents fought the system, taking her to the best schools. But even there they’d been talked down to like infants.

The problem was her honesty. “Stop telling them you hear voices,” her mother demanded between swigs of booze. “It’s the only way they’ll be able to place you.”

The voices persisted in distracting Nan from her purpose only briefly. It was a matter of careful study and learning about the chinks already present in her teacher’s armor. Applying innocent, wide-eyed looks and frantic wistfulness to most situations seems to work the best. 

She left them in the dust, person by person. She passed the grade, and the next, and the next, her teachers giving her As, Bs. She even ended up on the honor roll, with advanced classes in science and English. 

Funny, but when they were asked about it the year Nan disappeared in the bosom of the Academy, those teachers didn’t remember approving her grades. Or her presence on the honor roll. 

*** 

“There’s the secret,” he remarked. “They misjudged the viper in you.”

Nan smiled at that. “Don’t compare me to snakes. They’re disgusting, and I’m not disgusting.” Primly, she added, “I was very popular when I was alive. Boys _adored_ me.”

“Yes, I heard you bragging,” he replied. “But I don’t quite…believe your story.”

Nan sighed, waving the tips of her fingers in the air. She conjured another scene for him. Again, there lay a new scene before his jaded eyes; a lively gym, the scent of antiseptic floor polish and the low gleam of wooden floors. 

***

There was a dance going on out there, but under the shelter of a set of folding bleachers Nan had her arms and legs wrapped around the writhing back of a thick-backed blond boy. He came to a shuddering stop, and she relaxed beneath him with a sigh.

“Thanks.” She patted his flank as if he were a well-worked racehorse. “Uh…can you get off me? I have to get home.”

He raised his face from her shoulder. Suddenly, his features morphed to those of another boy, then to the pale eyes of another, the crooked smile of a fourth. The scene around them changed, showing basketball games, winter formals, spring dances. Though time marched along, each boy left the same way – with an apologetic smile - before kissing her hand and walking away dressed, leaving Nan to bask in the afterglow alone and nude.

*** 

Again, the scene dissolved, along with the tension in his frame. “Your magic was surprisingly powerful for one so young,” observed Papa. “But if you had always harnessed such power, why didn’t you stop Luke’s death?”

She frowned. “I’m a clairvoyant with mind control powers. I couldn’t astral project. And…I didn’t know he was dead until I couldn’t hear his thoughts anymore.” The darkness dispelled after a silence. Her eyes brightened. “Is he down here? Can I talk to him?”

Papa Legba shook his head. “One so good as he? Impossible. He went to…the other world.” He gave a small shudder at the very idea. “His soul does not belong to me.” To shake away the unhappiness he saw in Nan’s eyes, he quickly said, “come. Let’s discuss your future. You’ll have a bright one here.”

Nan stared into the crimson-colored cup still cradled in her palm. The liquid there rippled, reflecting the flame and spark haloing her braided head. After a moment’s reflection, she lifted her eyes to meet his.

“Do you promise to keep bringing me tea?”

“We will discuss it,” he said.

She smiled and took his burning hot hand. “I want a staff and a hat.”

“And to decide who lives and dies?”

She shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Then come,” he said, standing, spreading out his dark cloak. “Follow me. It’s time you learned to let another lead.”

Nan did as he asked, abandoning the cup on the rock. Her lips glimmered, blood-bright, as her feet traced his steps, speaking of a ceaseless future.

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfiction uses characters from **American Horror Story: Coven** , all of whom are the property of the **Fox Network**. No money was gained from the writing of this fanfiction and all are used under the strictures of of the Berne Convention.


End file.
